Levels on 808 expansion on MPC renaissance

I'm using the 808 expansion on the mpc as a plugin. I record a beat on 1 track with kick, snare, hihat and finish.
How do I adjust the levels of each sound? Like if I want the snare lower than the kick and bring up the hihat?
There is no pad mix available, can't see levels anywhere. I guess I could record each pad on a different track but that's not really convenient.

Am i missing something? What is the trick?

You need to open the software, then select the sound. After that you can tweak it.

I asked Akai why it has to be so difficult. No logical answer was given.

To me it's simple, select a sound and tweak it with the q-links (presets). That is how it should have been. That's the fastest workflow.

Chillin wrote:You need to open the software, then select the sound. After that you can tweak it.

I asked Akai why it has to be so difficult. No logical answer was given.

To me it's simple, select a sound and tweak it with the q-links (presets). That is how it should have been. That's the fastest workflow.

That means I gotta stop playing the beat, open the plugin interface, select the sound, change the volume or other options, hit play again to see how it sounds when played with the other sounds, hit stop if not satisfied and repeat the process all over again with each sound.
In terms of Workflow and avoiding headaches I might be better off creating a new track AND a new program for each individual sound once my pattern is in place. If I don't create a new program then the Qlinks affect every sound at the same time.

This really sucks but compared to the time I was wasting on my MPC 2000, 19 years ago, on loading floppy disks and such I guess it's still an improvement. It feels like it wouldn't be a difficult feature to improve or implement but I don't know..

Thank you Chillin for confirming.

I don't use it as often, but from what I remember you can use it "realtime". It's still terrible.

Yes, creating a new track/ plugin is a way around it.

I copied the 5K sounds (808, 909) over to the Ren, and made a soundpack. This way I have wav files easy to edit.

In my opinion they should have made the drum plugins work like any other wav file.


"If I don't create a new program then the Qlinks affect every sound at the same time."

I know, it's crazy.


" It feels like it wouldn't be a difficult feature to improve or implement but I don't know..."

It's indeed not that difficult of an algorithm. Once you tell that when a pad is hit, it needs to connect to the 16 Q-link/ (8) banks. The effects are then implemented over all banks, starting from bank A up to H, so one can move from Q-link to Q-link, bank to bank. This process is then repeated for each individual sound. You're done.

Chillin wrote:
I copied the 5000K sounds (808, 909) over to the Ren, and made a soundpack. This way I have wav files easy to edit.

How did you copy the sounds and do this? were those sounds from the expansion or from another source?

joooe wrote:

Chillin wrote:
I copied the 5000K sounds (808, 909) over to the Ren, and made a soundpack. This way I have wav files easy to edit.

How did you copy the sounds and do this? were those sounds from the expansion or from another source?

I used the import mode in the MPC software. Once done I cleared the song. And made a soundpack. The sounds were native to the 5K, flash memory.


For convenience I'll post a video, by someone else. So you can see the process.

Thanks! I'll try this out ..